“And evidence indicates there is no place for complacency when it comes to challenging prejudice. In recent years, the football authorities have improved procedures to identify and challenge discrimination in the game and we are pleased more people are aware of the reporting avenues.

My View - Dan King

CYRILLE REGIS, one of the most potent symbols of football’s fight against racism, was laid to rest last week.

How sad, then, how sickening, that the kind of bigotry he had to suffer is not only still with us but actually seems to be getting worse again.

Lord Herman Ouseley, chair of the Kick It Out campaign, is right. News that incidents of discrimination have risen by 59 per cent in the first half of the current season should indeed be “a wake-up call”.

Amid the grief and nostalgia following Regis’ death aged 59, there was also perhaps an air of complacency. Maybe we allowed ourselves to think that because the bad old days when bananas and abuse were hurled at black players were apparently long gone, the war against prejudice had been won.

The latest Kick It Out figures should quickly shock anyone out of that attitude.

Racism is still scarring English football — and it’s not funny, none of it.

As Cyrille Regis would have told you.

Everton player Mason Holgate pushes Liverpool player Robert Firmino into the crowd during FA Cup clash